Chapter Nine
Erik~
Between Christine and me, I was the nervous one the next day as rehearsal began and the managers called a meeting to announce Christine’s new role. I was so anxious that I could not keep still as I paced hidden in Box 5 and fisted urgent hands.
She looked so…calm. It was the façade I’d built her the previous night, and she accepted it and carried herself with grace and dignity as half-hearted accolades went about the cast for her new title. Just as predicted, they were jealous, many cold stares from other sopranos in minor roles who were more qualified than Christine for the lead. But to my pride, Christine never faltered, acting the diva persona as her shield. I had an urge to ring out with applause, for this role would be more difficult to maintain than the real staged one!
As rehearsal began, my pride swelled and exceeded its limits to overtake my every thought and feeling. She was…exceptional. She performed it precisely as she had in her dressing room the night before, and I was awestruck, hypnotized by her, only her.
This moment justified everything I’d done to put her in that place, and to glimpse the surprise all around from managers and cast was further proof. She quickly went from a suitable substitute to their little treasure in one glorious performance. …No one would doubt her talent again.
Christine was rushed from place to place all day: the stage, the dressing room for costume fittings, back to the stage. She had no break, and that was the only part that worried me when she handled everything else to perfection. So as the cast was released, later than usual, I resigned myself not to work her further. No, tonight I would just settle with being in her company.
When she returned to her dressing room finally alone, I awaited her and delighted in the bright, even if fatigued smile she granted my masked intrusion. Before a word, she closed out the world and slid the lock into place, no chance for intrusions. It overwhelmed me when I pondered that no one in the rest of the useless world would ever lock themselves in a room with the fabled Opera Ghost and his disfigured face. But Christine…well, I already said she was extraordinary.
“Ange?” she questioned, and I saw doubts finally break through the diva façade and return the girl I loved to me.
I approached before I ever gave the praises she needed, and when I stood before her, literally within the shadow her body cast by lamplight, I knelt on the soft carpet and caught her hands in my shaking ones, bowing my head to graze my bottom lip to her knuckles in an attempted kiss.
“I would happily die in this place,” I whispered and kept her hands in mine. “Reverently kneeling before your altar and adoring you. My God, Christine, you held an entire theatre in the palm of your hand and made everyone, including me, long to fall at your feet and beg for your favor.”
To my surprise, she suddenly knelt on the carpet with me and slid her fingers between mine to make us unbreakable. “You are the only one I wanted to please, the only one I sang for.”
“What a gift! I hardly deserve it, but I’ve never wanted anything so much,” I admitted and stared mesmerized into her blue eyes. Such emotions! Tied deep to her very soul. Had I ever received their brilliance this unguarded and exposed? They made more than just her voice mine, and I refused to let them go.
“Erik,” she whispered, and the reverberation of each syllable overcame me as they raced my spine and made me shiver. I was certain she meant to say more, but…sense knew this was the path to complications and the truths I did not want to reveal, truths she deserved to know…after the Gala night. Her debut and inevitable triumph had to come first.
So with a huff of my own chosen disappointment, I slowly drew away from her, rising on shaky knees. “You should go in to bed. We will forgo our lesson tonight. You need to rest.”
She mirrored my disappointment. It was clearly etched now that her diva façade was gone, but with a reluctant nod, she rose, smoothing her skirts. I noticed that her hands trembled.
And so I made her the vow I’d given in my mind, “After the Gala performance.” My gaze spoke the volumes I longed to tell, and I noted how it uplifted her spirit as she grinned at me and nodded.
“After the Gala performance,” she repeated, and with great effort, she turned and abandoned me in her dressing room. I missed her from the first second she was gone, but I knew this was for the best. I couldn’t chance putting too much upon her, not with the show but a day away. It would have been selfish.
I left through the mirror. I hadn’t told her that I had also been the one to put her in this particular dressing room. Its mirror was attached to the wall for a reason; it was actually a secret doorway directly down to the catacombs. More than that, it was a window. I could watch her from the opposite side, and no one would know or catch my constant presence. It seemed the most logical option when so many others would be in and out of the room during the next days. Now I could always make sure she stayed strong.
A mirrored doorway, and as my thoughts hung heavy with a guilt I didn’t want, I began to devise a plan to use it. After the performance… I’d bring her through the mirror and into my world, and I’d tell her everything.
Typically, I did not indulge keeping a conscience. I considered it a little masochistic voice inside meant to spoil living. Now that the daroga had been resurrected into my world, I had no choice. He became my external conscience and a nuisance I didn’t know how to rid myself of.
From his first appearance, he paid me a visit every night. I grew to expect his presence before I entered my home, awaiting me after Christine’s lesson with a weary, blame-filled expression. As much as I wanted to stay unmoved, he was torturing me into regret and guilt, filling my ears with stories of his wife, how he’d met her, how they’d fallen in love, his infant son, every detail I didn’t want because they were so humanizing. As much as I denied his nightly requests for help, we both knew I was on the verge of succumbing. I hated to admit it, but this was my mess to clean. It killed me to consider that I was going to have to go back to Persia and fix this if I ever wanted peace…from my own mind and the aggravating daroga.
But where did that leave Christine? I loathed the idea of being separated from her, especially when she was the only bright spot in my life. I reasoned the solution was to tell her everything and beg her to wait for me, loyal and true, until I returned for her. …It seemed like a death sentence.
After the Gala performance… And I was on pins and needles with its quick approach. When the day of the show finally arrived, I was adamant that I would not cower. I needed to make admissions as if in reconciliation for my soul, and I had faith that she would listen and accept me despite my sins. She had to; she’d already vowed herself as mine. The rest seemed simple.
The countdown to curtain and places had begun when I arrived on the opposite side of her mirror and peered inside. My heart halted its flustered beats with the very image put before me.
Her costume girl was helping her dress, and Christine wore only her flimsy undergarments. Through the lamplight, I could make out the silhouettes of her every curve in a far more provocative manner than her ballerina attire had once permitted. I did not scold my spying, not when desire struck so violent and abrupt that it startled morals into hiding. She was so beautiful and sensuous, and every thought of leaving this when it was so close to truly being mine made me ache inside and out. What if I lost her while I was away and returned to nothing…? No, I couldn’t let that happen.
My hungry gaze traced the delicate curve of her hip, up its perfect arch, and lingered on the swell of her breasts, their peaks making enticing shadows against thin white material. My fingers tingled with the need to tear fabric away and steal a taste of their glorious sweetness.
She was just so perfect; it frightened me because surely sinners with ugly faces were not meant to belong with exquisiteness. The voice of sense somewhere in the recesses of my mind insisted she was a rising star. All Paris would see her tonight and want her attention; could I believe she’d indulge the thin cord b
etween our hearts when so many greater offers would be tossed like flowers at her feet? Once again came that nagging twist of jealousy, making me regret this entire endeavor. I should have kept her for myself.
As I worried and pondered what the night would bring, I watched her with a stab of bittersweet affection as she dressed and became the prima donna before my eyes. She never gave doubts away, but I glimpsed their reflection in the back of her gaze where no one else would spy them: anxiety, fear, nerves. But her posture was stoic and lovely, the queen about to take her throne. My Christine, and it was a bit of consolation to know she acted the part for me, because I had talked her into it, and it was just that: a role that would fall away when we were alone together. No one else would know that.
The costume girl scurried out to the call of two minutes to curtain, and as Christine was left alone, her shoulders sagged and the pretense peeled back its layers to give a glimpse of the flickering soul within.
“Christine,” I breathed softly and set my fingers to the glass between us, and though she could not know my hiding place, I saw her react to my call just as she had the first time on that very first day we met. She shivered and started, but there was no apprehension, only a beaming smile because she knew me.
I was doubtless that would be my saving grace in the end. She read the secrets of my heart and had to realize that every evil I’d had a hand in committing did not alter its beat or its eternal devotion to hers. She had to know…
Gala night was a huge success. I watched from my box and savored every second as Christine assumed the diva role and triumphed over every battle in her path. She was fearless and graceful, and it was impossible to find the seam in her façade. Only I who loved the real girl beneath knew the truth and kept our intimate secret within the confines of my ribcage.
At final curtain call, Christine received a standing ovation, and I cheered as vivaciously as every other patron, noting the tremble in her limbs that she sought to conceal in her deep curtsy. The façade was cracking, and desperate to steal her before it evaporated to nothing, I ran through my passages to the mirror’s doorway, impatient for her appearance.
I gave long enough for the costume girl to help her change into a dressing gown, observing her distant silence and dull smiles for the help. No, she needed me now. No one else could raise her up where she belonged like I could, but I had limitations and forced restraint until at last the costume girl left the room. Finally…
“Christine,” I whispered her name and watched the spark within her reignite and gleam as she tilted her dark head inquisitively, seeking me out with an urgency I adored. She wanted me; I knew she’d always want me.
“Erik,” she pleaded in a breathless whisper. “Please, ange.”
I did not deny her. No, without preparation, I opened the mirror and saw her eyes grow wide as she leapt back before finding my shape and calming her fright.
“Erik! What is that?”
But I simply extended my hand through the threshold and held her gaze. She never hesitated. She set her hand in mine and wove our fingers together with a timid smile as I drew her into the darkness and shut out the rest of the world.
I had a lantern ready for her comfort, but the passages were no more than darkened stone tunnels. When one knew the correct path, there was no fear of traps or obscurity. It was all rather boring, and I found that my concentration preferred to lock on the girl following my gentle tugs without a single question. To my mind, she had made her choice already, and everything else I would spread before her tonight would not alter it. She’d given up her world to come with me; that alone spoke volumes.
“You have yet to tell me where we are going,” she finally said after long minutes of only our echoing footfalls.
I glanced back at her and delighted in the fact that not even my masked face etched in shadows got a reaction, nothing but her continued curiosity. “My home. You did not think I lurked about the theatre day and night, did you?”
“And…does your concept of ‘home’ include rooms and furniture? It’s not another damp, spider-infested cellar, is it?”
I actually chuckled at her light teasing, savoring the smile that never left her lips. She felt safe in my presence and trusted me; it was such a wonderful blessing.
“I cannot vouch for whether spiders inhabit its rooms or not,” I returned with the same humor. “But it is not another cellar. I promise that you will be pleasantly surprised.”
“We shall see.”
I delighted in the challenge and only further when we finally arrived and I brought her through the front door. I’d left the fire dwindling in the hearth, and it gave a welcoming warmth that radiated about our bodies and chased away lingering chills. My home was exactly that, and as she observed the details of a sitting room not much different than one owned by any affluent man in the world above, I relished her surprise.
Releasing her hand as I moved to stoke the fire back to life, I kept half my attention on her observations as she wandered about, scanning furnishings, the thick rugs and covered walls that looked nothing like the stone outside, my piano resting in the corner, odds and ends. It was almost ordinary.
“Well?” I pushed from my place at the hearth. “Perhaps there is a random spider spinning a web in a corner, but for the most part, it is a home, isn’t it?”
She grinned and nodded, and I memorized her image. My Christine in my sitting room and happy to be here with me. The newly beaming firelight illuminated her vision and made reddened hues in her dark, loose curls. How I ached to touch her! But first…
With a smile I could not restrain, I approached and knelt at her feet as I had after her first dress rehearsal performance, her awestruck worshipper. “Shall I now tell you how wonderful you were tonight?” She gave a nod with her feigned diva attitude, and I chuckled as I bid, “You were an angel, Christine. You surpassed mortal prima donna and became a heavenly being. I feel so certain I do not deserve you in my life. Angels belong in heaven and should know only wonders on earth, and I…I am no wonder.”
“To me, you are.”
I lifted a timid hand and dared to cup her cheek in my palm, astounded to see her delight in my touch. More blessings I did not deserve. “There are so many things I haven’t told you. I…I’ve been afraid. You mean everything, and if I lose you…”
A furrow lined her brow, but she did not shrink away from my caress as she bid, “You won’t lose me. How could you possibly? You are the very reason I sang tonight, Erik. You inspire me and make me alive. Nothing you tell me will change that.”
Doubt whispered warnings in my head, but I put them to sleep and decided to trust her and the innocence in her eyes. …Perhaps innocence wasn’t stable enough to hold such credence.
Huffing a deep, forced inhalation, I let walls and guard crumble and admitted in genuine honesty, “I have not always been the man you have before you. My past…it is degrading and an abomination. I spent most of my life tormented.”
“Because of your face,” she concluded, somber and with hints of compassion.
Though it knotted my heart simply to recall or share such atrocity, I nodded and quickly went on, shying from a subject I did not want to broach. “And I retaliated. Pain for pain. I…hurt people, Christine, …killed people.”
The furrow deepened into a chasm full of questions, but all she managed was a soft, “Oh…”
“Yes, sometimes for my protection, …sometimes for my pleasure. There were so many who wronged me and denounced my existence. I saw no grievance in revenge. I killed until killing became a talent. Others used it to their advantage. I became an assassin for the shah of Persia, killing his enemies, torturing without care or remorse…”
I hated admitting my sins; they made me weak and showed the true black stains on my soul. But Christine gave little away of her thoughts, keeping solemn and listening pensively with my hand still delicate against her cheek. I hoped touch anchored her to the Erik before her and not the one I was building memories of.
“Christine, …say something.”
“These things you’re telling me,” she softly beseeched, “they are your past.” She was seeking assurances without the questions.
My nod was hesitant because…well, I had current skeletons in my closet, and regret only came with the fact that I must reveal them to her. “Killing for pleasure was addictive; it was easy to enjoy having such power and hurt for the injustices I’d suffered in my lifetime. But…at some point, it grew stale, and I didn’t want a killer to be all I was. I needed to get out and find something better in the world. That was how I ended here at the opera.”
“As their ghost…”
“Yes.”
“You told me that you didn’t hurt people.”
“…Not for pleasure.”
Betrayal flickered in her blue eyes; I saw it interspersed in hurt, and I could already conclude the train of her thoughts. This was my greatest fear. Not a past as a murderer in Persia, but a present as a vengeful ghost with unexplained accidents to account for.
“But…you hurt people?”
“Sometimes,” I replied with a nonchalant shrug, and as she tensed, I pressed my hand firmer to her cheek, determined not to let go yet. “Sometimes it is unavoidable. I must protect myself and my secrets, and if others put me in jeopardy, I must react.”
“With violence,” she whispered, desolate and soft.
“How quickly you disregard the violence I have been on the other side of and endured as victim!” I justified. “I was beaten and tortured; even as a child, I was subject to ridicule, to fists, left for dead more times than I care to count.”
“An eye for an eye?” she offered with a dubious shake of her head. “Hurt because you’ve been hurt? But what about forgiveness?”
Scripted in Love's Scars Page 10